The Windup Girl

Great minds like Premwadee Srisati and Apichat Kunikorn may argue over best practices for protection or debate the merits of UV sterilization barriers along the Kingdom's borders versus the wisdom of pre-emptive genehack mutation, but in Jaidee's view they are idealists. The ocean always flows through.

"126… 127… 128… 129… "

Jaidee leans over Lieutenant Kanya Chirathivat's shoulder and watches as she counts bribe money. A pair of Customs inspectors stand stiffly aside, waiting for their authority to be returned to them.

"130… 140… 150… " Kanya's voice is a steady chant. A paean to wealth, to greasing the skids, to new business in an ancient country. Her voice is clear and meticulous. With her, the count will always be correct.

Jaidee smiles. Nothing wrong with a little gift of good will.

At the next anchor pad, 200 meters away, megodonts scream as they drag cargo out of a dirigible's belly and pile the shipment for sorting and Customs approval. Turbofans gust and surge, stabilizing the vast airship anchored overhead. The balloon lists and spins. Gritty winds and megodont dung scour across Jaidee's arrayed white shirts. Kanya places a hand over the baht she is counting. The rest of Jaidee's men wait, impassive, their hands on machetes as the winds whip against them.

The turbofan gusts subside. Kanya continues her chant. "160… 170… 180… "

The Customs men are sweating. Even in the hot season, there's no reason to sweat so. Jaidee isn't sweating. But then, he's not the one who has been forced to pay twice for protection that was probably expensive the first time.

Jaidee almost pities them. The poor men don't know what lines of authority may have changed: if payments have been rerouted; if Jaidee represents a new power, or a rival one; don't know where he ranks in the layers of bureaucracy and influence that run through the Environment Ministry. And so they pay. He's surprised that they managed to find the cash at all, on such short notice. Almost as surprised as they must have been when his white shirts smashed the doors of the Customs Office and secured the field.

"Two hundred thousand." Kanya looks up at him. "It's all here."

Jaidee grins. "I told you they'd pay."

Kanya doesn't return the smile, but Jaidee doesn't let it damp his glee. It's a good hot night and they've made a lot of money and as a bonus they've watched the Customs Service sweat. Kanya always has difficulty accepting good fortune when it comes her way. Somewhere during her young life she lost track of how to take pleasure. Starvation in the Northeast. The loss of her parents and siblings. Hard travels to Krung Thep. Somewhere she lost her capacity for joy. She has no appreciation for sanuk, for fun, even such intense fun, such sanuk mak as successfully shaking down the Trade Ministry or the celebration of Songkran. And so when Kanya takes 200,000 baht from the Trade Ministry and doesn't bat an eye except to wipe away the scouring dust of the anchor pads, and certainly doesn't smile, Jaidee doesn't let it hurt his feelings. Kanya has no taste for fun, that is her kamma.

Still, Jaidee pities her. Even the poorest people smile sometimes. Kanya, almost never. It's quite unnatural. She doesn't smile when she is embarrassed, when she is irritated, when she is angry or when she has joy. It makes others uncomfortable, her complete lack of social grace, and it is why she landed at last in Jaidee's unit. No one else can stand her. The two of them make a strange pair. Jaidee who always finds something to smile at, and Kanya, whose face is so cold it might as well be carved from jade. Jaidee grins again, sending goodwill to his lieutenant. "Let's pack it up, then."

"You've overstepped your authority," one of the Customs men mutters.

Jaidee shrugs complacently. "The Environment Ministry's jurisdiction extends to every place where the Thai Kingdom is threatened. It is the will of Her Royal Majesty the Queen."

The man's eyes are cold, even though he forces himself to smile pleasantly. "You know what I mean."

Jaidee grins, shrugging off the other's ill will. "Don't look so forlorn. I could have taken twice this much, and you still would have paid."

Kanya begins packaging up the money as Jaidee sifts through the wreckage of a crate with the tip of his machete. "Look at all this important cargo that must be protected!" He flips over a bundle of kimonos. Probably shipped to a Japanese manager's wife. He stirs through lingerie worth more than his month's salary. "We wouldn't want some grubby official rifling through all of this, would we?" He grins and glances at Kanya. "Do you want any of this? It's made of real silk. The Japanese still have silk worms, you know."

Kanya doesn't look up from her work with the money. "It's not my size. Those Japanese manager wives are all fat on genehack calories from their deals with AgriGen."

"You would steal, too?" The Customs official's face is a mask of controlled rage behind a polite, gritted smile.